Displaying items by tag: california palace of the legion of honor

Lynn Orr, the former curator of European art at San Francisco’s Fine Art Museums, is suing the institution for illegally dismissing her. Orr claims she was let go for supporting a union demonstration and protesting financial deception. Orr has worked for the museums for 29 years and served as a curator for 11 years until her firing on November 20, 2013.

The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 in San Francisco superior court. In her claim, Orr stated that the museums’ human resources director told her that she was being dismissed because of her performance but she had never been confronted about her work in the past. Orr did say that museum officials criticized her attendance at a demonstration held on September 7, 2013 at San Francisco’s M.H. de Young Museum, which was organized to oppose the museums’ management’s stance in labor negotiations.

Orr’s lawsuit also touched on an incident during which she and other employees claimed that the museums were undervaluing a painting that was to be shipped overseas, which she considered to be deceitful. A fellow employee who objected to the situation was fired within a few months of the incident. Orr is seeking unspecified damages from the city of San Francisco and the private corporation that runs the museums.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which includes the modern-leaning M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and the neoclassical California Palace of the Legion of Honor, has been involved in a number of recent uproars. The tumult has included tense labor negotiations, firings of senior staff member such as Orr, and scathing criticism of the museums board’s president, Diane Wilsey.

After 15 months without a director, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco will appoint Colin B. Bailey, a deputy director at the Frick Collection in New York, the head of the consortium. Bailey, 57, is a renowned specialist in 18^th and 19^th century French art and has been at the Frick since 2000.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which includes the modern-leaning M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and the neoclassical California Palace of the Legion of Honor, was left leader-less after the death of its previous director, John Buchanan, in 2011. The city of San Francisco and a private board of trustees oversee the museums, which collectively are the largest public arts institution in San Francisco and one of the largest art museums in the state of California.

The announcement, which was made by the museum board on Wednesday, March 27, 2013, comes after a considerable period of tumult among the museums; the past year has included tense labor negotiations, firings of senior staff members, and scathing criticism of the board’s president, Diane Wilsey. Wilsey, an art collector, philanthropist, and prominent San Francisco socialite, has been accused of using the museums’ resources for her own benefit and of nepotism.

The museums’ recent troubles have not deterred Bailey’s excitement to join the Fine Arts Museums. His abundance of museum experience includes stints at the National Gallery of Canada, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.